Thursday, November 7, 2013

The Traveller Coup Box Sitrep

This being the opening situation report
for the Traveller mini-campaign I was pitching yesterday.

Background

Freedonia (D333575-8) is a large
terraformed moon orbiting Novo Marlank. It currently has a breathable
atmosphere somewhere between thin and very thin and is dominated by a
single, mostly barerock continent punctuated by large freshwater
lakes and the occasional cultivated sap-forest preserve. Offworlders
unused to the atmosphere cocktail typically wear light
respirators to stave off fatigue and dizziness. Sadly it was well on
its way to a nice cushy standard atmosphere before the Time of Woe
fractured the terraforming efforts and left the giant CO2 generators
idle (people are assholes).

For nigh on 70 years the moon's central
government has ceased to exist with de facto micronations rising and
falling around various generalissimo-type figures. Complicating the
political situation even further are the cross-national political
factions, meaning most of the polities are further riven with smaller
internal struggles that lead to an utterly confusing and shifting set
of small-scale wars.

Despite the relative bitterness of
civil war, all factions are at least nominally adhering to the
Cantonment Statues for the Polite Administration of Organized
Killing. These so-called rules of war mandate
formally-declared, pre-determined pitched battles, regulate "casualty caps" for such
battles, set rules for
ceremonial dueling, limit the use of heavy weapons/wmds, and
otherwise keep the war gentlemanly and prolonged/stalemated.

To date only two polities on the moon
have managed to remain neutral: Unterzone and Kraldeset. Unterzone is
a small city surrounding the decidedly shitty starport and has the
feel of intrigue-ridden Istanbul in WW2—all the factions wheel and
deal here with their agents. The Kral, the main arena of our coup
box, has managed to steer clear of the civil war by way of its
political/geographic isolation and sheer miserableness.

The Kral itself is a small (even by
Freedonian standards) “city” state. Roughly two-thirds of its
30,000 or so citizens live in scattered plantation centers or mining camps
with the remaining population hunkered down in the partially-domed
city (town really) of the same name.

The Brief

The player's soldier-bolo (a
democratically-run mercenary coop) has been contacted by The Ten, a
group of Kral exiles hiding in Unterzone. The dissidents are a motley
groups of former-opposition politicians, technopriests, ponzi
bankers, clonemasters, pawnshop brokers and other upper middle class
professionals lacking military experience. They welcome a “regime
change” in their former home and after running a wildly successful
crowdfunding project on Warstarter are prepared to pay a whopping
632,000 credits to a group who can complete that task in 99 days
(after which the Cantonment Tax-Bots step in and confiscate the
unused funds).

Though politically kept in line by the Vibes
Committees, the thuggish militia of the Autokrator, the Kral's
military is expected to be in a sorry, demoralized shape said to
number in the 300-600 range and lacking any air, space, surface navy
or heavy weapon components.

Map and more details of the city-state
proper will be made available both at the brief and by any
reconnaissance the players decide on.

Assets

Starting upfront budget of 100,000
credits to be paid in two monthly chunks of 50,000.

Although the bolo currently lacks a
starship—the Cacafuego is currently impounded facing charges of
alleged black lotus powder smuggling—a decrepit free trader, the
Dapper Deodand, can be rented for around 10,000 credits a month (this
includes bribes for the crew).

Obstacles

Securing arms, material and more
manpower are all major obstacles.

The Cantonment navy is running a
semi-rigorous naval blockade of arms and will confiscate and
occasionally imprison those trying to break it. However
small shipments (and the acceptable number hinges on the arbitrary
assessment of the on-duty Astro-Marine officer) of Tech 5 and other
“hunting weapons” are legal.

I will present a few leads and rumors
for various illegal and semi-legal ways you can procure arms at or
before the session. There are a number of ways to skin that
proverbial cat.

Recruitment will be as per the
wonderful subsystem in Book 4: Mercenary.
Getting them there, organizing/training them and perhaps finding
alternative ways to recruit others is the players' problem